Radical environmentalism—as distinct from conservationism and advocacy for proper environmental practices—is often expressed as a neo earth religion. Having lost belief in human exceptionalism—and perhaps theistic faith, although that is less pronounced—true believers personalize nature as if it were a living being. And that results in ideas and attitdues that have the potential to destroy much of human prosperity.
Prince—Long-Live-the-Queen—Charles is one of these environmental romantics, decrying the loss of a mythical bucolic and Edenic nature—as he flies around the world in private jets and lives a life of luxury that resulted precisely from exploiting natural resources during the British Empire period. He apparently states in a documentary that we have lost sight of nature as a living being. From the story:
The Prince of Wales says he believes he has been placed on Earth as future King ‘for a purpose’ - to save the world. Giving a fascinating insight into his view of his inherited wealth and influence, he said: ‘I can only somehow imagine that I find myself being born into this position for a purpose. ‘I don’t want my grandchildren or yours to come along and say to me, “Why the hell didn’t you come and do something about this? You knew what the problem was”. That is what motivates me. ‘I wanted to express something in the outer world that I feel inside... We seem to have lost that understanding of the whole of nature and the universe as a living entity.’
That’s because it isn’t. But this kind of fuzzy, paganistic kind of hyper romanticism is growing, hence Ecuador’s Constitution creating the “rights of nature” equivalent to those of humans and Switzerland declaring the dignity of individual plants. Taken to its logical extreme, we would stop growth and most resource development leading to a reduced standard of living in the West and continued destitution in places like Africa and Afghanistan. Indeed, that very course is being advocated in the drive to create a new international crime known as “ecocide,” which would transform resource development such as mining and oil drilling into a heinous “crime against peace” equivalent to genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Charles’ comment is not a major matter in and of itself. But this kind of drivel illustrates how contemporary anti-human agendas are being driven by well intentioned, but dim celebrities thinking they are “saving the world.” The next thing you know, the prince will don Druid priest’s vestments and lead an earth worshiping ceremony at Stonehenge.
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